gold rush

This is his mouth on my breast. Like a nursing child, he won’t let go. This is him smiling peacefully like a child, and before returning to his dedicated task at hand, this is him asking if I ever thought about piercing them.

That’s what Danny used to ask me every time I took my clothes off for him. He would pinch my nipples, chuckle, and say, “why haven’t you pierced them yet?”

When I took my clothes off for Danny it was always in a rush. Vulnerable is letting someone watch you undress, not the actual state of nakedness. Vulnerable is letting someone see the order in which you remove your clothes.

My breasts fall out to the sides, heavy and dropping. I hate the way the skin around my areola looks in the light. Every man who has known my body has loved and coveted my breasts like they were buried treasure. As though my lace bra unlatching could be equated to the opening of a chest full of coins. My nipples are hunks of fools gold.

This is his teeth grating against my sore and sensitive skin, I can feel my heart breaking.  And this is me four years earlier, in the same room, beneath the same open window. This is me sucking off his brother as the sun rose, he calls me by someone else’s name. I ignore the battle between come and coke drip that happens at the back of my throat. I masturbate when the moon disappears.

I will know what it’s like to fuck two brothers, what it’s like to watch them both struggle to last. They will never know of one another’s exploration of my body, and they will never know how they both made me scream.

This is my aching cunt and the breaking sky. They are the greatest of lovers. 

knees like california

We moved a lot when I was a kid and to this day my favorite home was in an olive green trailer. I was young, six years old. We parked the metal beast in a field in spring. The sunsets made the flowers look like flames.

We had a garden where we grew basil and zucchini. Every night we cooked quiche and drank lemonade. No one was ever sad because you could just step outside and be enveloped in orange and yellow sunflowers.

I remember the fireflies at dusk.

The air would buzz with heat, and the dust danced with me. My arms spread wide, I twirled. My skin felt like California. My knees shook with joy.

I have not felt this joy since, and this is only a dream.

I didn’t ever try to catch the fireflies. I knew how sad I would be if someone caught me in a jar and shook me ‘till my spark went out. 

un-mastered

I am not a master of anything; I only pretend to know what I’m doing. Mostly I learn by failing.

When I peel my eyelids away from each other the almost god-like beams of the winter sun remind me, yet again, that I am alive. It is as if they come from my dreams of constantly pressing the self-destruct button, and make sure I know it’s not time yet.

I spent the third month of my twenty-second year of life relearning how to walk. My unused bones shook, my tear ducts flooding, I picked myself up. This was the last time my father held me like fathers are supposed to hold their daughters. This was the last time I cried tears of joy.

I am a battle cry. My limbs and lips make the sky shake with fear. I am a war zone with my scars and fought-over territories. My legs belong to the sky, my shoulders-the grass. My hands are my own, forever, and ever, amen.

I remember the sun rising over the Columbia river, a photograph-worthy morning. I chewed my nails and watched as the early summer stars disappeared, being replaced by a shine I’d only ever imagined. It was like the darkness would never reappear, nighttime would become a fond memory, like childhood games, campfire songs, or youthful innocence.

Once I sang to the trees, high on hash on my back in the middle of a field of purple flowers. The clouds felt like owl feathers and I could feel the bugs antennae-sensing my skin. We were all hippie and tan. Melanie said she loved the trees. We sang for minutes until we had been singing for hours. The only words to our song were “we love you, trees. We love you.”

I am not a territory in the midst of battle. My skin encases not a battle cry, but a soft whisper of surrender. I belong only to myself, forever, and ever, amen.

I am ivy. I have been cut back time, and time again. Torn down from the bark of trees, snipped from my grasp on every last thing I have loved. We have thrived together. I am known as an invasive and poisonous species, but my many green arms have grown to lift everything around me. I am raising you all to the sun, yet somehow and always I am ripped away from you, suspected as a trespasser. I will return, however. Thank god no one has ripped me out from my roots, I don’t think I could survive that.